Can You Spell These Five Words?

I have always prided myself on being a decent speller, but there are no fewer than five words I can't spell without wrestling with the letters to get them in the proper sequence and the appropriate number of double letters.

The fact is, technology is a wonderful thing but it has made us extremely lazy. I used to know the phone numbers of all my friends and family members. Now that I have a cell phone, I know a grand total of three personal phone numbers.. my own, my wife's, and my parent's - because it's still the same number I grew up with.

It's the same way with spelling. Now that we have auto correct features in our office software and our smart phones, often times you don't have to know how to spell a word because the technology does it for you.

Consequently, there are a handful of common words that give me great fits every time I have to write them - without the benefit of technology. One would thing that eventually I would just learn how to spell them without hesitation, but so far that hasn't happened.

Here's the top five words I can never seem to spell correctly.

1) RECOMMEND - I can never remember, is it two c's and one 'm', or one 'c' and two m's, or is two c's and two m's.

2) OCCURRENCE - I always think it's either one 'c' or one 'r', but it's double consonants...and I always want to end it with 'ance.'

3) DIAHRREA - Somehow I need to remember it's two r's, and that it's 'h' before 'r'. Fortunately, I don't need to write this one too often.

4) ALBUQUERQUE The first 'u' always throws me off.  I always think it should be an 'e'.

5) AMATEUR - This shouldn't be that difficult, yet I struggle with the placement of the 'e' and the 'u'.

There are other words that give me fits, but these five are the most common. I remain grateful for the technology that helps me out in this area. I would be interested to know what words you have trouble spelling correctly.